Profligate Ignorance

Profligate Ignorance Arthagnani THE World Bank is making an assessment of foreign aid needs for the coming year, and the aid club has scheduled a meeting in Paris in May next At the time of devaluation, India had a large volume of aid in the pipeline, estimated at about $ 2,500 million as on March 31, 1966. Devaluation did not throw open the floodgates of foreign aid nor, for that matter, of exports. Government had hitched on a nice round figure of $ 1 billion, which was reduced in more trying times, to $ 900 million. The genesis of this figure remains obscure to this day. It has been based neither on any cash flow estimates of the foreign exchange budget nor on the actual needs of various sectors of the economy.